What are the characteristic features of Sumerian writing? What the Sumerians could do. Knowledge received from the gods
Stone Age, fourth millennium BC, people use stone tools, have the most primitive skills, almost zero skills and the most barbaric knowledge about the world around them. They live either directly in the open air or in dwellings like dugouts. No bows, no swords, no ships, no jewelry, no pyramids, no kings, no furniture - none of this chaotic set existed at that time, and could not have arisen, given the stage of human evolution.
So it seemed to scientists for a long time, until the Sumerian civilization was discovered, which with its existence created a real sensation among scientific minds. The scale of the shock was so great that few people wanted to believe in the reality of the Sumerians until the facts became too many. What so amazed and continues to amaze the most enlightened minds of humanity?
Judging by the finds discovered in the cities of the Sumerians, they were the inventors of almost everything that we use to this day. In principle, it is high time for historians and literary publishing houses to rewrite history, because much that was attributed to other peoples was invented by the mysterious Sumerians. The Sumerians came, and out of nowhere entire cities appeared with huge pyramids, ziggurats, real smooth roads covered with a substance similar in composition to modern asphalt.
So, six thousand years ago, an incomprehensible civilization either itself invented something that could not yet exist at that time, or used more ancient inventions, which means that all our ideas about this stage of the development of our planet are fundamentally incorrect. Here is the little that the Sumerians knew and used:
In those days, one could already find markets on the streets, people opened something like culinary shops where they could have a snack on the way. Sumerians walked through the streets in beautiful outfits, decorated with various jewelry. And this is not the only thing that shocks researchers. Most of all, no one understands why a nation that was supposed to develop, having achieved everything in the first centuries of its existence, then suddenly began to degrade! Assumptions have been and are being made. And the worst thing is that it is the scientists and romantic writers of recent generations who can become those thanks to whom the Sumerian civilization will acquire absurd legends, which will subsequently prevent our descendants from continuing the study of this most interesting mysterious people.
1. The emergence of writing. The development of the state administration system, the accumulation of wealth by rulers, nobility and temples required the accounting of property. To indicate who, how much and what belonged, special symbols and drawings were invented. Pictography is the oldest writing using pictures.
Use pictographs to write a letter to your friend.
new combination of wedge signs. This writing is called cuneiform. At first, the signs of Sumerian writing were arranged vertically from top to bottom. Then the scribes began to line them up horizontally, which significantly speeded up the process of applying signs to wet clay.
Cuneiform writing was adopted from the Sumerians by other peoples living in Mesopotamia.
L | Jl Cuneiform writing was used in Mesopotamia for almost 3 thousand years.
However, later it was forgotten. For tens of centuries, cuneiform kept its secret, until in 1835 G. Rawlinson, an English officer and lover of antiquities, deciphered it. On a steep cliff in Iran, the same inscription has been preserved in three ancient languages, including ancient Persian. Rawlinson first read the inscription in this language he knew, and then figured out another inscription, identifying and deciphering more than 200 cuneiform characters.
The invention of writing was one of mankind's greatest achievements. Writing made it possible to preserve knowledge and made it accessible to a large number of people. It became possible to preserve the memory of the past in records, and not just in oral retelling, passed on from generation to generation “from mouth to mouth.”
2. The birth of literature. The first poems were created in Sumer, capturing ancient legends and stories about heroes. Writing has made it possible to convey them to our time. This is how literature was born.
The Sumerian poem of Gilgamesh tells the story of a hero who dared to challenge the gods. Gilgamesh was the king of the city of U-Ruk. He boasted of his power to the gods, and the gods were angry with the proud man. They co-
They created Enkidu, a half-man, half-beast who possessed enormous strength, and sent him to fight Gilgamesh.
However, the gods miscalculated. The forces of Gilgamesh and Enkidu turned out to be equal. Recent enemies have turned into friends. They went on a journey and experienced many adventures. Together they defeated the terrible giant who guarded the cedar forest, and accomplished many other feats.
But the sun god was angry with Enkidu and doomed him to death. Gilgamesh mourned the death of his friend inconsolably. Gilgamesh realized that he could not defeat death.
Gilgamesh went to seek immortality. At the bottom of the sea he found the herb of eternal life. But as soon as the hero fell asleep on the shore, an evil snake ate the magic grass. Gilgamesh was never able to fulfill his dream.
But the poem about him created by people made his image immortal.
What did Gilgamesh discover with the loss of his friend?
12 months, and the circle is 360 degrees.
The first schools were established in the cities of Sumer. Only boys studied there; girls were educated at home. The boys left for classes at sunrise. Schools were organized at churches. The teachers were the servants of the temples - the priests (about them, see § 11).
The classes lasted all day. It was not easy to learn to write in cuneiform, count, and tell stories about gods and heroes. Poor knowledge and violation of discipline were severely punished. Anyone who successfully completed school could get a job as a scribe, official, or become a priest. This made it possible to live without knowing poverty.
The Sumerian culture became the foundation for the development of the culture of many peoples of the Middle East.
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Despite the severity of discipline, school in Sumer was likened to a family. The teacher was called "father" and the students were called "sons of the school." And in those distant times, children remained children. They loved to play and fool around. Archaeologists have found games and toys that children used to amuse themselves with. The younger ones played the same way as modern kids. They carried toys on wheels with them. It is interesting that the greatest invention, the wheel, was immediately used in toys.
Sumerian flood myth
People stopped obeying the gods and their behavior aroused their anger. And the gods decided to destroy the human race. But among the people there was a man named Utnapishtim, who obeyed the gods in everything and led a righteous life. The water god Ea took pity on him and warned him of a flood. Utnapishtim built a ship and loaded his family, pets and property onto it. For six days and nights his ship rushed through the raging waves. On the seventh day the storm subsided.
 Toys for children of Ancient Sumer |
Then Utnapishtim released a raven. And the raven did not return to him. Utnapishtim realized that the raven had seen the earth. It was the top of the mountain to which Utnapishtim’s ship landed. Here he brought
sacrifice to the gods. The gods forgave people. The gods granted immortality to Utnapishtim. The flood waters have receded. Since then, the human race began to multiply again, exploring new lands.
What is the instructiveness of the flood myth?
1. List the reasons for the emergence of writing. 2. Why did cuneiform replace writing with pictures? 3. Formulate and record the achievements of the Sumerians that contributed to the emergence of this civilization. 4. Give examples from Russian fairy tales in which the courage of the heroes is similar to the courage of Gilgamesh. 5. Read the section of the paragraph “Knowledge of the Sumerians.” Write down the rules of learning in the Sumerian school. 6. Use the knowledge of the Sumerians and calculate how much time is left until the end of lessons today; before the holidays.
T ^ " 1. Compare the Sumerian and modern schools. Draw conclusions. 2. Find the text of the poem about Gilgamesh in additional literature or on the Internet. Read about the adventures of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Can their relationship be called true friendship and why?
Our projects and research. Together with adults, prepare an electronic presentation about the emergence of cuneiform writing (no more than 5 slides).
The Sumerians are the first civilization on earth.
The Sumerians are an ancient people who once inhabited the territory of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the south of the modern state of Iraq (Southern Mesopotamia or Southern Mesopotamia). In the south, the border of their habitat reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, in the north - to the latitude of modern Baghdad.
For a millennium, the Sumerians were the main protagonists in the ancient Near East.
Sumerian astronomy and mathematics were the most accurate in the entire Middle East. We still divide the year into four seasons, twelve months and twelve signs of the zodiac, measure angles, minutes and seconds in sixties - just as the Sumerians first began to do.
When going to see a doctor, we all... receive prescriptions for drugs or advice from a psychotherapist, without thinking at all that both herbal medicine and psychotherapy first developed and reached a high level precisely among the Sumerians. Receiving a subpoena and counting on the justice of the judges, we also know nothing about the founders of legal proceedings - the Sumerians, whose first legislative acts contributed to the development of legal relations in all parts of the Ancient World. Finally, thinking about the vicissitudes of fate, complaining that we were deprived at birth, we repeat the same words that the philosophizing Sumerian scribes first put into clay - but we hardly even know about it.
Sumerians are "black-headed". This people, who appeared in the south of Mesopotamia in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC from nowhere, are now called the “progenitor of modern civilization,” but until the mid-19th century no one even suspected about them. Time has erased Sumer from the annals of history and, if not for linguists, perhaps we would never have known about Sumer.
But I will probably start from 1778, when the Dane Carsten Niebuhr, who led the expedition to Mesopotamia in 1761, published copies of the cuneiform royal inscription from Persepolis. He was the first to suggest that the 3 columns in the inscription are three different types of cuneiform writing, containing the same text.
In 1798, another Dane, Friedrich Christian Munter, hypothesized that 1st class writing is an alphabetic Old Persian script (42 characters), 2nd class - syllabic writing, 3rd class - ideographic characters. But the first to read the text was not a Dane, but a German, a Latin teacher in Göttingen, Grotenfend. A group of seven cuneiform characters caught his attention. Grotenfend suggested that this is the word King, and the remaining signs were selected based on historical and linguistic analogies. Eventually Grotenfend made the following translation:
Xerxes, the great king, king of kings
Darius, king, son, Achaemenid
However, only 30 years later, the Frenchman Eugene Burnouf and the Norwegian Christiann Lassen found the correct equivalents for almost all cuneiform characters of the 1st group. In 1835, a second multilingual inscription was found on a rock in Behistun, and in 1855, Edwin Norris managed to decipher the 2nd type of writing, which consisted of hundreds of syllabic characters. The inscription turned out to be in the Elamite language (nomadic tribes called Amorites or Amorites in the Bible).
With type 3 it turned out to be even more difficult. It was a completely forgotten language. One sign there could represent both a syllable and a whole word. Consonants appeared only as part of a syllable, while vowels could also appear as separate characters. For example, the sound "r" could be represented by six different characters, depending on the context. On January 17, 1869, linguist Jules Oppert stated that the language of the 3rd group is... Sumerian... Which means the Sumerian people must also exist... But there was also a theory that this is only an artificial - “sacred language "Priests of Babylon. In 1871, Archibald Says published the first Sumerian text, the royal inscription of Shulgi. But it was not until 1889 that the definition of Sumerian was universally accepted.
SUMMARY: What we now call the Sumerian language is actually an artificial construction, built on analogies with the inscriptions of the peoples who adopted the Sumerian cuneiform - Elamite, Akkadian and Old Persian texts. Now remember how the ancient Greeks distorted foreign names and evaluate the possible authenticity of the sound of the “restored Sumerian”. Strangely, the Sumerian language has neither ancestors nor descendants. Sometimes Sumerian is called “the Latin of ancient Babylon” - but we must be aware that Sumerian did not become the progenitor of a powerful language group; only the roots of several dozen words remained from it.
The emergence of the Sumerians.
It must be said that southern Mesopotamia is not the best place in the world. Complete absence of forests and minerals. Swampiness, frequent floods accompanied by changes in the course of the Euphrates due to low banks and, as a consequence, a complete absence of roads. The only thing there was in abundance there was reed, clay and water. However, in combination with fertile soil fertilized by floods, this was enough for the first city-states of ancient Sumer to flourish there at the very end of the 3rd millennium BC.
We don't know where the Sumerians came from, but when they appeared in Mesopotamia, people were already living there. The tribes that inhabited Mesopotamia in ancient times lived on islands rising among the swamps. They built their settlements on artificial earthen embankments. By draining the surrounding swamps, they created an ancient artificial irrigation system. As the finds at Kish indicate, they used microlithic tools.
An impression of a Sumerian cylinder seal depicting a plow. The earliest settlement discovered in southern Mesopotamia was near El Obeid (near Ur), on a river island that rose above a marshy plain. The population living here was engaged in hunting and fishing, but was already moving on to more progressive types of economy: cattle breeding and agriculture
The El Obeid culture existed for a very long time. Its roots go back to the ancient local cultures of Upper Mesopotamia. However, the first elements of Sumerian culture are already appearing.
Based on the skulls from the burials, it was determined that the Sumerians were not a monoracial ethnic group: brachycephals (“round-headed”) and dolichocephalic (“long-headed”) are found. However, this could also be the result of mixing with the local population. So we cannot even attribute them to a specific ethnic group with complete confidence. At present, we can only say with some certainty that the Semites of Akkad and the Sumerians of Southern Mesopotamia differed sharply from each other both in their appearance and in language.
In the oldest communities of southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. e. Almost all products produced here were consumed locally and subsistence farming reigned. Clay and reed were widely used. In ancient times, vessels were sculpted from clay - first by hand, and later on a special potter's wheel. Finally, clay was used in large quantities to make the most important building material - brick, which was prepared with an admixture of reeds and straw. This brick was sometimes dried in the sun, and sometimes fired in a special kiln. By the beginning of the third millennium BC. e., are the oldest buildings built from peculiar large bricks, one side of which forms a flat surface, and the other a convex surface. A major revolution in technology was made by the discovery of metals. One of the first metals known to the peoples of southern Mesopotamia was copper, the name of which appears in both the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. Somewhat later, bronze appeared, which was made from an alloy of copper and lead, and later - with tin. Recent archaeological discoveries indicate that already in the middle of the third millennium BC. e. In Mesopotamia, iron was known, apparently from meteorites.
The next period of the Sumerian archaic is called the Uruk period after the site of the most important excavations. This era is characterized by a new type of ceramics. Clay vessels, equipped with high handles and a long spout, may reproduce an ancient metal prototype. The vessels are made on a potter's wheel; however, in their ornamentation they are much more modest than the painted ceramics of the El Obeid period. However, economic life and culture received their further development in this era. There is a need to prepare documents. In this regard, a primitive picture (pictographic) writing emerged, traces of which were preserved on cylinder seals of that time. The inscriptions number a total of up to 1,500 pictorial signs, from which the ancient Sumerian writing gradually grew.
After the Sumerians, a huge number of clay cuneiform tablets remained. It may have been the world's first bureaucracy. The earliest inscriptions date back to 2900 BC. and contain business records. Researchers complain that the Sumerians left behind a huge number of "economic" records and "lists of gods" but never bothered to write down the "philosophical basis" of their belief system. Therefore, our knowledge is only an interpretation of “cuneiform” sources, most of them translated and rewritten by priests of later cultures, for example, the Epic of Gilgamesh or the poem “Enuma Elish” dating back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. So, perhaps we are reading a kind of digest, similar to an adaptive version of the Bible for modern children. Especially considering that most of the texts are compiled from several separate sources (due to poor preservation).
The property stratification that occurred within rural communities led to the gradual disintegration of the communal system. The growth of productive forces, the development of trade and slavery, and finally, predatory wars contributed to the separation of a small group of slave-owning aristocracy from the entire mass of community members. The aristocrats who owned slaves and partly land are called “big people” (lugal), who are opposed by “little people”, that is, free poor members of rural communities.
The oldest indications of the existence of slave states in Mesopotamia date back to the beginning of the third millennium BC. e. Judging by the documents of this era, these were very small states, or rather, primary state formations, headed by kings. The principalities that lost their independence were ruled by the highest representatives of the slave-owning aristocracy, who bore the ancient semi-priestly title “tsatesi” (epsi). The economic basis of these ancient slave states was the country's land fund, centralized in the hands of the state. Communal lands, cultivated by free peasants, were considered the property of the state, and their population was obliged to bear all kinds of duties in favor of the latter.
The disunity of city-states created a problem with the exact dating of events in Ancient Sumer. The fact is that each city-state had its own chronicles. And the lists of kings that have come down to us were mostly written no earlier than the Akkadian period and are a mixture of scraps of various “temple lists”, which led to confusion and errors. But in general it looks like this:
2900 - 2316 BC - the heyday of the Sumerian city-states
2316 - 2200 BC - unification of Sumer under the rule of the Akkadian dynasty (Semitic tribes of the northern part of Southern Mesopotamia who adopted Sumerian culture)
2200 - 2112 BC - Interregnum. The period of fragmentation and invasions of the nomadic Kutians
2112 - 2003 BC - Sumerian Renaissance, the heyday of culture
2003 BC - the fall of Sumer and Akkad under the onslaught of the Amorites (Elamites). Anarchy
1792 - rise of Babylon under Hammurabi (Old Babylonian Kingdom)
After their fall, the Sumerians left something that was picked up by many other peoples who came to this land - Religion.
Religion of Ancient Sumer.
Let's touch on the Sumerian Religion. It seems that in Sumer the origins of religion had purely materialistic, rather than “ethical” roots. The cult of the Gods was not aimed at “purification and holiness” but was intended to ensure a good harvest, military successes, etc.... The most ancient of the Sumerian Gods, mentioned in the oldest tablets “with lists of gods” (mid-3rd millennium BC .e.), personified the forces of nature - the sky, sea, sun, moon, wind, etc., then gods appeared - patrons of cities, farmers, shepherds, etc. The Sumerians argued that everything in the world belonged to the gods - temples were not the place of residence of the gods, who were obliged to take care of people, but the granaries of the gods - barns.
The main deities of the Sumerian Pantheon were AN (sky - masculine) and KI (earth - feminine). Both of these principles arose from the primordial ocean, which gave birth to the mountain, from the firmly connected sky and earth.
On the mountain of heaven and earth An conceived the Anunnaki [gods]. From this union, the god of air was born - Enlil, who divided heaven and earth.
There is a hypothesis that in the beginning maintaining order in the world was the function of Enki, the god of wisdom and the sea. But then, with the rise of the city-state of Nippur, whose god Enlil was considered, it was he who took a leading place among the gods.
Unfortunately, not a single Sumerian myth about the creation of the world has reached us. The course of events presented in the Akkadian myth "Enuma Elish", according to researchers, does not correspond to the concept of the Sumerians, despite the fact that most of the gods and plots in it are borrowed from Sumerian beliefs. At first life was hard for the gods, they had to do everything themselves, there was no one to serve them. Then they created people to serve themselves. It would seem that An, like other creator gods, should have had a leading role in Sumerian mythology. And, indeed, he was revered, although most likely symbolically. His temple at Ur was called E.ANNA - "House of AN". The first kingdom was called the "Kingdom of Anu". However, according to the Sumerians, An practically does not interfere in the affairs of people and therefore the main role in “everyday life” passed to other gods, led by Enlil. However, Enlil was not omnipotent, because supreme power belonged to a council of fifty main gods, among which the seven main gods “who decide fate” stood out.
It is believed that the structure of the council of gods repeated the “earthly hierarchy” - where the rulers, ensi, ruled together with the “council of elders”, in which a group of the most worthy was highlighted..
One of the foundations of Sumerian mythology, the exact meaning of which has not been established, is “ME”, which played a huge role in the religious and ethical system of the Sumerians. In one of the myths, more than a hundred “MEs” are named, of which less than half were read and deciphered. Here such concepts as justice, kindness, peace, victory, lies, fear, crafts, etc. , everything is somehow connected with social life. Some researchers believe that “me” are prototypes of all living things, emitted by gods and temples, “Divine rules”.
In general, in Sumer the Gods were like People. Their relationships include matchmaking and war, rape and love, deception and anger. There is even a myth about a man who possessed the goddess Inanna in a dream. It is noteworthy that the whole myth is imbued with sympathy for man.
It is interesting that the Sumerian paradise is not intended for people - it is the abode of the gods, where sadness, old age, illness and death are unknown, and the only problem that worries the gods is the problem of fresh water. By the way, in Ancient Egypt there was no concept of heaven at all. Sumerian hell - Kur - a gloomy dark underground world, where on the way there stood three servants - “door man”, “underground river man”, “carrier”. Reminiscent of the ancient Greek Hades and Sheol of the ancient Jews. This empty space separating the earth from the primordial ocean is filled with the shadows of the dead, wandering without hope of return, and demons.
In general, the views of the Sumerians were reflected in many later religions, but now we are much more interested in their contribution to the technical side of the development of modern civilization.
The story begins in Sumer.
One of the leading experts on Sumer, Professor Samuel Noah Kramer, in his book History Begins in Sumer, listed 39 subjects in which the Sumerians were pioneers. In addition to the first writing system, which we have already talked about, he included in this list the wheel, the first schools, the first bicameral parliament, the first historians, the first “farmer's almanac”; in Sumer, cosmogony and cosmology arose for the first time, the first collection of proverbs and aphorisms appeared, and literary debates were held for the first time; the image of “Noah” was created for the first time; here the first book catalog appeared, the first money began to circulate (silver shekels in the form of “weight bars”), taxes began to be introduced for the first time, the first laws were adopted and social reforms were carried out, medicine appeared, and for the first time attempts were made to achieve peace and harmony in society.
In the field of medicine, the Sumerians had very high standards from the very beginning. The library of Ashurbanipal, found by Layard in Nineveh, had a clear order, it had a large medical department, which contained thousands of clay tablets. All medical terms were based on words borrowed from the Sumerian language. Medical procedures were described in special reference books, which contained information about hygiene rules, operations, for example, cataract removal, and the use of alcohol for disinfection during surgical operations. Sumerian medicine was distinguished by a scientific approach to making a diagnosis and prescribing a course of treatment, both therapeutic and surgical.
The Sumerians were excellent travelers and explorers - they are also credited with inventing the world's first ships. One Akkadian dictionary of Sumerian words contained no less than 105 designations for various types of ships - according to their size, purpose and type of cargo. One inscription excavated at Lagash talks about ship repair capabilities and lists the types of materials that the local ruler Gudea brought to build a temple to his god Ninurta around 2200 BC. The breadth of the range of these goods is amazing - from gold, silver, copper - to diorite, carnelian and cedar. In some cases, these materials were transported over thousands of miles.
The first brick kiln was also built in Sumer. The use of such a large furnace made it possible to fire clay products, which gave them special strength due to internal tension, without poisoning the air with dust and ash. The same technology was used to smelt metals from ores, such as copper, by heating the ore to temperatures above 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit in a closed furnace with little oxygen supply. This process, called smelting, became necessary early on, as soon as the supply of natural native copper was exhausted. Researchers of ancient metallurgy were extremely surprised by how quickly the Sumerians learned the methods of ore beneficiation, metal smelting and casting. These advanced technologies were mastered by them only a few centuries after the emergence of the Sumerian civilization.
Even more amazingly, the Sumerians had mastered alloying, a process by which different metals were chemically combined when heated in a furnace. The Sumerians learned to produce bronze, a hard but easily workable metal that changed the entire course of human history. The ability to alloy copper with tin was a great achievement for three reasons. First, it was necessary to select a very precise ratio of copper and tin (analysis of Sumerian bronze showed the optimal ratio - 85% copper to 15% tin). Secondly, there was no tin at all in Mesopotamia. (Unlike, for example, Tiwanaku) Thirdly, tin does not occur in nature in its natural form at all. To extract it from the ore - tin stone - a rather complex process is required. This is not a business that can be opened by chance. The Sumerians had about thirty words for different types of copper of varying quality, but for tin they used the word AN.NA, which literally means "Sky Stone" - which many see as evidence that Sumerian technology was a gift of the gods.
Thousands of clay tablets were found containing hundreds of astronomical terms. Some of these tablets contained mathematical formulas and astronomical tables with which the Sumerians could predict solar eclipses, various phases of the moon, and the trajectories of the planets. The study of ancient astronomy has revealed the remarkable accuracy of these tables (known as ephemeris). Nobody knows how they were calculated, but we can ask the question - why was this necessary?
"The Sumerians measured the rising and setting of visible planets and stars relative to the earth's horizon, using the same heliocentric system that is used now. We also adopted from them the division of the celestial sphere into three segments - northern, central and southern (accordingly, the ancient Sumerians - "the path of Enlil ", "path of Anu" and "path of Ea"). In essence, all modern concepts of spherical astronomy, including a complete spherical circle of 360 degrees, zenith, horizon, axes of the celestial sphere, poles, ecliptic, equinox, etc. - all this is suddenly originated in Sumer.
All the knowledge of the Sumerians regarding the movement of the Sun and the Earth was combined in the world's first calendar, created in the city of Nippur, the solar-lunar calendar, which began in 3760 BC. The Sumerians counted 12 lunar months, which were approximately 354 days, and then they added 11 additional days to get a full solar year. This procedure, called intercalation, was done annually until, after 19 years, the solar and lunar calendars were aligned. The Sumerian calendar was compiled very precisely so that key days (for example, the New Year always fell on the day of the vernal equinox). The surprising thing is that such a developed astronomical science was not at all necessary for this newly emerging society.
In general, the mathematics of the Sumerians had “geometric” roots and was very unusual. Personally, I don’t understand at all how such a number system could have originated among primitive peoples. But it’s better to judge this for yourself...
Mathematics of the Sumerians.
The Sumerians used a sexagesimal number system. Only two signs were used to represent numbers: “wedge” meant 1; 60; 3600 and further degrees from 60; "hook" - 10; 60 x 10; 3600 x 10, etc. The digital recording was based on the positional principle, but if, based on the basis of notation, you think that numbers in Sumer were displayed as powers of 60, then you are mistaken.
In the Sumerian system, the base is not 10, but 60, but then this base is strangely replaced by the number 10, then 6, and then again by 10, etc. And thus, the positional numbers are arranged in the following row:
1, 10, 60, 600, 3600, 36 000, 216 000, 2 160 000, 12 960 000.
This cumbersome sexagesimal system allowed the Sumerians to calculate fractions and multiply numbers up to millions, extract roots and raise to powers. In many ways this system is even superior to the decimal system we currently use. Firstly, the number 60 has ten prime factors, while 100 has only 7. Secondly, it is the only system ideal for geometric calculations, and this is why it continues to be used in modern times from here, for example, dividing a circle into 360 degrees.
We rarely realize that we owe not only our geometry, but also our modern way of calculating time, to the Sumerian sexagesimal number system. The division of the hour into 60 seconds was not at all arbitrary - it is based on the sexagesimal system. Echoes of the Sumerian number system were preserved in the division of the day into 24 hours, the year into 12 months, the foot into 12 inches, and in the existence of the dozen as a measure of quantity. They are also found in the modern counting system, in which numbers from 1 to 12 are distinguished separately, followed by numbers like 10+3, 10+4, etc.
It should no longer surprise us that the zodiac was also another invention of the Sumerians, an invention that was later adopted by other civilizations. But the Sumerians did not use zodiac signs, tying them to each month, as we do now in horoscopes. They used them in a purely astronomical sense - in the sense of the deviation of the earth's axis, the movement of which divides the full cycle of precession of 25,920 years into 12 periods of 2160 years. During the twelve-month movement of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, the picture of the starry sky, forming a large sphere of 360 degrees, changes. The concept of the zodiac arose by dividing this circle into 12 equal segments (zodiac spheres) of 30 degrees each. Then the stars in each group were united into constellations, and each of them received its own name, corresponding to their modern names. Thus, there is no doubt that the concept of the zodiac was first used in Sumer. The outlines of the zodiac signs (representing imaginary pictures of the starry sky), as well as their arbitrary division into 12 spheres, prove that the corresponding zodiac signs used in other, later cultures could not appear as a result of independent development.
Studies of Sumerian mathematics, much to the surprise of scientists, have shown that their number system is closely related to the precessional cycle. The unusual moving principle of the Sumerian sexagesimal number system emphasizes the number 12,960,000, which is exactly equal to 500 great precessional cycles, occurring in 25,920 years. The absence of any other than astronomical possible applications for the products of the numbers 25,920 and 2160 can only mean one thing - this system was developed specifically for astronomical purposes.
It seems that scientists are avoiding answering the inconvenient question, which is this: how could the Sumerians, whose civilization lasted only 2 thousand years, be able to notice and record a cycle of celestial movements that lasted 25,920 years? And why does the beginning of their civilization date back to the middle of the period between the zodiac changes? Doesn't this indicate that they inherited astronomy from the gods?
Sumerian cuneiform is part of the small heritage that remains after this. Unfortunately, most of the architectural monuments were lost. All that remained were clay tablets with unique writings on which the Sumerians wrote - cuneiform. For a long time it remained an unsolved mystery, but thanks to the efforts of scientists, humanity now has data about what the civilization of Mesopotamia was like.
Sumerians: who are they?
The Sumerian civilization (literal translation “black-headed”) is one of the very first to emerge on our planet. The very origin of a people in history is one of the most pressing issues: disputes among scientists are still ongoing. This phenomenon is even given the name “Sumerian question.” The search for archaeological data led to little, so the main source of study became the field of linguistics. The Sumerians, whose cuneiform script is best preserved, began to be studied from the point of view of linguistic kinship.
Around 5 thousand years BC, settlements appeared in the valley and Euphrates in the southern part of Mesopotamia, which later grew into a powerful civilization. Archaeological finds indicate how economically developed the Sumerians were. Cuneiform writing on numerous clay tablets tells about this.
Excavations in the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk allow us to make an unambiguous conclusion that the Sumerian cities were quite urbanized: there were classes of artisans, traders, and managers. Outside the cities lived shepherds and peasants.
Sumerian language
The Sumerian language is a very interesting linguistic phenomenon. Most likely, he came to southern Mesopotamia from India. For 1-2 millennia, the population spoke it, but it was soon replaced by Akkadian.
The Sumerians still continued to use their native language in religious events, administrative work was carried out in it, and they studied in schools. This continued until the beginning of our era. How did the Sumerians write their language? Cuneiform was used precisely for this purpose.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to restore the phonetic structure of the Sumerian language, because it belongs to the type where the lexical and grammatical meaning of a word lies in numerous affixes attached to the root.
Evolution of cuneiform
The emergence of Sumerian cuneiform coincides with the beginning of economic activity. It is due to the fact that it was necessary to record elements of administrative activity or trade. It should be said that Sumerian cuneiform is considered the first writing to appear, which provided the basis for other writing systems in Mesopotamia.
Initially, digital values were recorded while they were far from written language. A certain amount was indicated by special clay figurines - tokens. One token - one item.
With the development of economics, this became inconvenient, so they began to make special markings on each figure. Tokens were stored in a special container on which the owner’s seal was depicted. Unfortunately, in order to count the items, the storage had to be broken down and then sealed again. For convenience, information about the contents began to be depicted next to the seal, and after that the physical figures disappeared completely - only the prints remained. This is how the first clay tablets appeared. What was depicted on them was nothing more than pictograms: specific designations of specific numbers and objects.
Later, pictograms began to reflect abstract symbols. For example, a bird and an egg depicted next to it already indicated fertility. Such writing was already ideographic (signs-symbols).
The next stage is the phonetic design of pictograms and ideograms. It should be said that each sign began to correspond to a certain sound design that has nothing to do with the depicted object. The style is also changing, it is being simplified (we’ll tell you how later). In addition, for convenience, the symbols unfold and become horizontally oriented.
The emergence of cuneiform gave impetus to the replenishment of the dictionary of styles, which is happening very actively.
Cuneiform: Basic Principles
What was cuneiform writing? Paradoxically, the Sumerians could not read: the principle of writing was not the same. They saw the written text, because the basis was
The style was largely influenced by the material on which they wrote - clay. Why she? Let's not forget that Mesopotamia is an area where there are practically no trees suitable for processing (remember the Slavic ones or the Egyptian papyrus, made from a bamboo stem), and there was no stone there. But there was plenty of clay in the river floods, so it was widely used by the Sumerians.
The writing blank was a clay cake, it had the shape of a circle or a rectangle. The marks were made with a special stick called a kapama. It was made of hard material, such as bone. The tip of the kapama was triangular. The writing process involved dipping a stick into soft clay and leaving a specific design. When the kapama was pulled out of the clay, the elongated part of the triangle left a wedge-like mark, hence the name “cuneiform”. To preserve what was written, the tablet was fired in a kiln.
The origins of syllabics
As stated above, before cuneiform appeared, the Sumerians had another type of writing - pictography, then ideography. Later, the signs became simplified, for example, instead of a whole bird, only a paw was depicted. And the number of signs used is gradually decreasing - they become more universal, they begin to mean not only direct concepts, but also abstract ones - for this it is enough to depict another ideogram next to it. Thus, “another country” and “woman” standing next to each other meant the concept of “slave”. Thus, the meaning of specific signs became clear from the general context. This way of expression is called logography.
Still, it was difficult to depict ideograms on clay, so over time, each of them was replaced by a certain combination of dashes-wedges. This pushed the writing process further by allowing syllables to match specific sounds. Thus, syllabic writing began to develop, which lasted for quite a long time.
Decoding and meaning for other languages
The mid-19th century was marked by attempts to understand the essence of the Sumerian cuneiform writing. Grotefend made great strides in this. However, what was found made it possible to finally decipher many texts. The rock-cut texts contained examples of ancient Persian, Elamite and Akkadian script. Rawlins was able to decipher the texts.
The emergence of Sumerian cuneiform influenced the writing of other countries of Mesopotamia. As civilization spread, it brought with it the verbal-syllabic type of writing, which was adopted by other peoples. The entry of Sumerian cuneiform into Elamite, Hurrian, Hittite and Urartian writing is especially clear.
